[Det. Bullock]

This feels an appropriate place as any:

The Movie Boys have taken a swing at another Chris Roberts boondoggle.

Listening to it right now.

It's sad that that spacesims are one of the genres Sterling prefers not to talk about since he never played one, this whole Star Citizen thing might be prime material for a Jimquisition.

[Sushi]

And to be perfectly frank, atmospheric controls are a great way to balance out gameplay, especially in a game designed with actual flight physics. Imagine a yaw speed the same as pitch. That would be hilariously overpowered, wouldn't you think? To be able to bring your weapons to bear in a handful of seconds in any situation? Oh, wait, FreeSpace physics and controls work the best in every game, I forgot...

Having played multiple games with both "yaw == pitch" and "yaw != pitch" styles, I've come to prefer the latter. It tends to force more interesting tradeoffs in how you move.

Best of all is when different ships within the same game have noticeably different yaw/pitch/roll characteristics, requiring different flying styles to use to maximum effect.

[Torchwood]

Best of all is when different ships within the same game have noticeably different yaw/pitch/roll characteristics, requiring different flying styles to use to maximum effect.

Wing Commander 5 had that, sort of. The Panther has much better yaw than patch, the Vampire has much better pitch than yaw (as does the Kaze in Wings of Dawn!). You'll find yourself doing much better with those ships if you roll so you take advantage of your good turn axis when maneuvering.

[Colonol Dekker]

Give me a ferret over a broadsword any day. (Or a Loki over a boanegersgsseees (you know the one))....

[Dragon]

Wing Commander 5 had that, sort of. The Panther has much better yaw than patch, the Vampire has much better pitch than yaw (as does the Kaze in Wings of Dawn!). You'll find yourself doing much better with those ships if you roll so you take advantage of your good turn axis when maneuvering.

Those were gimmicks, but I agree that they made flying those fighters an interesting experience.

TBH, I'm actually fan of WC-type "flight style" (in FS2 and X-wing, it always annoyed me that ships rolled when yawing). We can argue all day about semantics about what constitutes "airplane physics", but ultimately, I think that it's important that turning by pitching and rolling "feels atmospheric", more so than having yaw and pitch rates be equal. Let's face it, nobody is even pretending that the spaceflight in space sims has anything to do with reality, so any talk about airplanes should be taken as figurative. The whole argument on previous page is silly, and that's because those flight models aren't realistic in first place and were never meant to be. Those who bring actual flight simulators (not merely WWII games!) are the silliest of all. If we're talking realism, ArmA3 has more realistic physics than either ED, SC or anything ever made on FSO engine (and those who play that one know its flight model isn't anywhere near sim level, either).

Probably the best idea would be to combine the flight models (sort of like what Starshatter did, but that one also has newtonian spaceflight). Pitch and yaw should be equal in space, while in atmosphere, you need to roll in order to turn. Of course, gimmicks like WCP's Panther and Vampire could also be used. Panther was decidedly weird to fly with that yaw rate, but in space, it can be done just by putting more RCS on the sides or having a single-plane thrust vectoring in yaw.

The only game that does spaceflight in an actually realistic way is Kerbal Space Program. I imagine one could make a fun combat game involving orbital mechanics, but it won't even be in the same neighborhood as anything we know (not to mention complexity-wise, it'd be like Starshatter cubed).

[FrikgFeek]

TBH, I'm actually fan of WC-type "flight style" (in FS2 and X-wing, it always annoyed me that ships rolled when yawing).

Wait what? Freespace ships definitely do not roll when yawing. Yaw and pitch rates are usually close to eachother and the ship doesn't auto-roll when yawing. You can complete a 360 yaw in the same plane.

I think you haven't played Freespace in way too long.

[Spoon]

$Banking Constant:
FS2 Open 3.6.10:

    Defines a factor for how much roll is added during a yaw. Set as 1 for full roll and 0 is no roll. Default is 0.5.
    Syntax: Float

Banking constant 0
https://my.mixtape.moe/pxwzao.webm

Banking constant 0.5
https://my.mixtape.moe/jruxlg.webm

Banking constant 1
https://my.mixtape.moe/rjiayv.webm

[FrikgFeek]

I mean, that's really slight at the default value, it's more a of a "feel" thing than an actual mechanic you have to account for when flying.
It's not like Rogue Squadron where yawing will tilt your fighter 90 degrees. At 1 it looks like you'd be pulling off barrel rolls with just the yaw axis. It says a lot when someone who played a fair share of freespace never really noticed.

Though I do roll quite a lot manually so I guess it was easier to miss the slight automatic roll?
 
But guess I was wrong about Freespace not using auto-roll, sorry about that.

[Kszyhu]

"Banking into a turn" isn't a defining characteristic of air flight, try again.

Not sure if trolling.. 

read this, you may yet learn something today. Dont worry, it doesnt hurt.

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/turns.html

Elite has a flight model with important elements that are intentionally modeled after atmospheric aeroplane simulators. It may still be fun, and plane simulator gamer demographics is a lot larger than newtonian spacesim demographic, so there is some logic behind this decision. Its just not my cup of tea.

What is your link trying to prove? Try to fly backwards in a plane, or sideways, or pitch up until you're flying backwards, then accelerate to fly forward. I repeat, "Banking into a turn" isn't a defining characteristic of air flight, semantics aside it's just one of the maneuvers. I'd say that's defining characteristic of how an aircraft flies is the need for a laminar flow over the wings to generate lift, and for that you have to maintain certain angle off attack. You can't fly sideways, you can't drift and so on.

That is, uh, literally not how aeroplanes fly. You don't roll into turns. You roll TO turn.

Thats just semantics tho. In space you dont roll into turns, dont roll to turn, dont roll at turns, dont roll for turnz, and last but not least, dont roll in turns. In space, six degrees of freedom are at last truly free

And E:D has six degrees of freedom, you don't have to roll to turn if you don't want to.

Edit:
@Dragon: To me, saying that the flight model is atmospheric is an implication that the game doesn't have six degrees of freedom.

[Spoon]

I mean, that's really slight at the default value, it's more a of a "feel" thing than an actual mechanic you have to account for when flying.
It's not like Rogue Squadron where yawing will tilt your fighter 90 degrees. At 1 it looks like you'd be pulling off barrel rolls with just the yaw axis. It says a lot when someone who played a fair share of freespace never really noticed.

Though I do roll quite a lot manually so I guess it was easier to miss the slight automatic roll?
 
But guess I was wrong about Freespace not using auto-roll, sorry about that.

I was the same as you there, I was just reminded of there being a banking constant entry on the wiki and was thinking "huh, I don't actually remember there being any auto-rolling in freespace". Because as you said, its mostly a feel thing, and not something you account for when flying at all. A zero value felt really 'off' to me, whereas 0.5 just felt 'right'

[Buckshee Rounds]

You could emulate some of the strafing in that E:D video if you used a helicopter rather than a fixed wing aircraft. I've seen two helicopters circle strafe an imaginary point in the air while facing each other, quite impressive to watch. That's the closest example of real life flight that I can think of to compare and it's still wildly dissimilar. Even in a helicopter your throttle won't respond anywhere near as fast and the way you actually fly the thing is really weird and sometimes counterintuitive.

Ultimately it's not particularly important about how your starfighter flies so long as it's actually fun to fly. I've never once jumped into Arena Commander without bemoaning the controls, interface, fps, etc.

EDIT: Spelling.

[Kszyhu]

Ultimately it's not particularly important about how your starfighter flies so long as it's actually fun to fly. I've never once jumped into Arena Commander without bemoaning the controls, interface, fps, etc.

I quite like space games with newton-ish flight model, so that's might be part of the reason why I whine about its implementation in SC. I have played SC during few free fly events, but I don't think I've ever had any fun, it's just too sluggish and unwieldy, in space flight or during on-foot gameplay.

[Torchwood]

I quite like space games with newton-ish flight model, so that's might be part of the reason why I whine about its implementation in SC. I have played SC during few free fly events, but I don't think I've ever had any fun, it's just too sluggish and unwieldy, in space flight or during on-foot gameplay.

FSO could do Newtonian, but the game is not balanced for it by default. So far, only Dimensional Eclipse did use that flight model AFAIK.

If you want a good Newtonian sim, the Indepence War series is worth a look. The second one has a bit of a rough start, but once you get into and get the ship after the tug, it really takes off.

[Phantom Hoover]

Have you played E:D? It is IMO the best pseudo-newtonian flight model ever made; it gives you a full 6 degrees of freedom and then puts enough corners and limitations on them to make combat actually require thought and skill.

[FrikgFeek]

Rolling to turn is definitely not a defining characteristic of atmospheric flight. If you can't play with lift then your game isn't "atmospheric".
If applying roll and slight opposite yaw/rudder causes your craft to sideslip(maintain heading while changing orientation) then your game is atmospheric. If it causes the craft do to a low-radius barrel roll then it's not.

[Aesaar]

[karajorma]

Well you can't admit you backed a losing proposition, can you?

[Kszyhu]

@Torchwood, Phantom Hoover: Thanks, but I have Elite since its' release, and I have completed I-War 2 at least three times. By the way, saying that the game takes off after acquiring a Patcom is a great bit of understatement.

[Cobra]

I have completed I-War 2 at least three times.

Only 3 times?

[FrikgFeek]

Interesting how about a year ago all the culty posts that ended up on SA or this thread would have scores like +60 while now they're in the negative. Maybe the SC community really is waking up after 6 years of "development".